1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information editing apparatus for editing a reproduction manner of a recorded information already recorded on an information storage medium, and an information reproducing apparatus for reproducing the recorded information in the manner edited by the information editing apparatus. More particularly, the present invention relates to an information editing apparatus for editing a reproduction manner of the recorded information including one or a plurality of picture information, and an information reproducing apparatus for reproducing the recorded information in the manner edited by the information editing apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
If recorded information such as a plurality of broadcast programs or the like (hereinafter, recorded information to be continuously reproduced will be referred to as a xe2x80x9cprogramxe2x80x9d) is recorded in a currently popular video tape recorder so that a user can select a target program desired to be viewed from the plurality of programs, it is necessary to find a leading portion of the target program by performing feed-forward or feed-back operation on the video tape and then start the reproduction therefrom.
However, this reproduction method is inconvenient in the cases where many programs are recorded on one video tape or where a recording time for each program is long even if the number of recorded program is small.
So, the following configuration is proposed in order to solve that disadvantage. That is, a recording position on a video tape, a recorded date, a channel (in a case of a broadcasted program) and the like are extracted for each recorded program. Then, those information for all recorded programs are collected and recorded at a leading area of the video tape as contents information. At the time of reproduction, the contents information is used to select the target program desired to be viewed. The reproduction apparatus searches for the recording position of the desired program by referring to the contents information, and then automatically starts the reproduction of the program.
However, in the above-mentioned conventional program searching method, only a character such as a title of each program and the like is recorded as the contents information. Therefore, it is quite inconvenient for a user who wants to grasp the whole contents of the recorded programs at a glance.
Also, in the above-mentioned conventional program reproducing method, the recorded programs can be reproduced only in a manner that they are originally recorded. Thus, a user cannot arbitrarily edit and view the recorded programs in a manner as he or she desires.
The present invention is proposed in view of the above mentioned problems. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an information editing apparatus and an information reproducing apparatus, which enable a user to arbitrarily edit the reproduction manner of the recorded information such as pre-recorded programs so that the content of the recorded programs are intuitively recognizable, and to easily select and reproduce the desired program.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information editing apparatus for editing a reproduction manner of record information which is recorded on an information storage medium and includes at least one picture information, including: a selecting unit for selecting a partial record information from the record information, the partial record information being part of the record information and including at least one picture information; a designating unit for designating a reproduction timing of the selected partial record information; an extracting unit for extracting the picture information included in the partial record information as a representative picture information indicative of the partial record information; and a recording unit for recording the designated reproduction timing and either one of the extracted representative picture information and a designation information indicative of a recorded position on the information storage medium of the representative picture information onto the information storage medium as a reproduction control information separately from the record information.
In this apparatus, the reproduction timing of the partial record information is recorded together with either one of the representative picture information and the designation information corresponding to the representative picture information. Therefore, the partial record information already recorded may be edited to be reproduced at an arbitrary reproduction timing, and the partial record information reproduced with the aid of the representative picture information at the time of reproduction may be intuitively recognized.
The extracting unit may extract the picture information to be firstly reproduced on a reproduction time axis of the partial record information, as the representative picture information, among the picture information included in the partial record information. By this, the contents of the partial record information to be reproduced may be easily recognized.
The selecting unit may select a plurality of the partial record information from the record information, the designating unit may designate an order of reproducing the selected plurality of partial record information as the reproduction timings corresponding to the selected respective partial record information, respectively, the extracting unit may extract one of the representative picture information that collectively represents the plurality of partial record information, with regard to selected plurality of the partial record information; and the recording unit may record the designated plurality of reproduction timings, and one of the extracted one representative picture information and the designation information corresponding to the representative picture information, as the reproduction control information, on the information storage medium. By this, the reproduction order of the plurality of partial record information may be arbitrarily edited, and the contents of the partial record information may be easily recognized by a single representative picture information when reproducing the plurality of partial record information collectively.
The recording unit may generate a plurality of the reproduction control information, which are intended to respectively reproduce a plurality of the partial record information in different reproduction order and include one of the representative picture information different from each other for each reproduction control information and the designation information different from each other for each reproduction control information corresponding to the representative picture information, and then records the reproduction control information on the information storage medium. Therefore, by combining the plural partial record information selected from a single record information, they can be edited to be reproduced in a different reproduction order. At the time of reproduction, the contents of each partial record information may be recognized by one of the representative picture information and the designation information corresponding thereto, for each different reproduction order.
The information editing apparatus may further include a changing unit for changing a content of the reproduction control information to generate a changed reproduction control information and for recording the generated changed reproduction control information on the information storage medium. Thus, one record information may be reproduced in plural kinds of reproduction manner without changing the contents of the record information.
The change of the contents of the reproduction control information by the changing unit may include erasing a part of the plurality of the partial record information. Thus, a part of the recorded information may be removed without changing the recorded information.
The information editing apparatus may further include: a judging unit for judging whether or not the representative picture information included in the reproduction control information is included in the partial record information to be reproduced based on the changed reproduction control information, and a picture information changing unit for changing one of the representative picture information and the designation information indicative of the recorded position on the information storage medium of the representative picture information to one of the picture information included in the partial record information to be reproduced based on the changed reproduction control information and the picture designation information indicative of the recorded position on the information storage medium of the picture information, when the representative picture information is not included in the partial picture information to be reproduced based on the changed reproduction control information. Therefore, in response to the change of the reproduction control information, one of the representative picture information and the designation information corresponding thereto may also be changed. In addition, it is possible to prevent the representative picture information inconsistent with the changed reproduction control information from being outputted at the time of reproduction.
The information editing apparatus may further include: a judging unit for judging whether or not the representative picture information included in the reproduction control information is included in the partial record information to be reproduced based on the changed reproduction control information, and an erasing unit for erasing the representative picture information when the representative picture information is not included in the partial picture information to be reproduced based on the changed reproduction control information. Thus, if the reproduction control information is changed, it is possible to prevent the representative picture information inconsistent with the changed reproduction control information from being outputted at the time of reproduction.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information reproducing apparatus for reproducing recorded information which is recorded by an information editing apparatus described above, including: an outputting unit for extracting the representative picture information from the reproduction control information and for outputting the extracted representative picture information; and a reproducing unit for reproducing the record information based on the outputted representative picture information. By this, the partial recorded information may be reproduced with recognizing the contents thereof by the representative picture information.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided an information reproducing apparatus for reproducing recorded information which is recorded by an information editing apparatus described above, including: an outputting unit for extracting the representative picture information from each of the reproduction control information to output a plurality of representative picture information; a reproduction control information selecting unit for selecting the reproduction control information indicative of the reproduction order based on the selected reproduction control information; and a reproducing unit for reproducing the record information based on the selected reproduction control information. By this, if the reproduction control information for different reproduction orders are recorded, it is possible to reproduce the partial record information with recognizing, in advance, the reproduction contents corresponding to the respective reproduction control information by the respective representative picture information.
The nature, utility, and further features of this invention will be more clearly apparent from the following detailed description with respect to preferred embodiment of the invention when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings briefly described below.